Preeclampsia increases risk for mental disorders in children
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Hypertensive disorders during pregnancy predicted an increased risk for childhood mental disorders, according to a study published in Hypertension.
“Our current novel findings show that the predisposing effects of maternal hypertensive pregnancy disorders and especially preeclampsia extend to any childhood mental disorder and, more specifically, psychological development and behavioral and emotional disorders in the offspring,” Marius Lahti-Pulkkinen, PhD, docent and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki in Finland, told Healio. “We are also among the first to show that parental mental disorders do not explain these associations, and that maternal preeclampsia predicts offspring childhood mental disorders also independently of maternal diabetes mellitus disorders and early pregnancy overweight/obesity.”
Researchers analyzed data from 4,743 mother-child dyads who gave birth between 2006 and 2010. Women were recruited during early pregnancy, and medical records and registers were used to obtain information on hypertensive pregnancy disorders. BP was measured at antenatal clinicals and during hospital visits.
Their children were followed up until 2016, when they were aged 6.4 to 10.8 years. Data on mental disorder diagnoses were obtained from the Care Register for Health Care.
Covariates assessed in this study included maternal smoking, age at delivery, alcohol use during pregnancy, education level, parity, lifetime diagnosis of mental disorders, paternal hypertensive disorders and offspring birth year and sex.
Of the children in the study, 8.7% developed childhood mental disorders during follow-up.
The risk for childhood mental disorder increased with maternal gestational and chronic hypertension, preeclampsia and severity. The link between childhood mental disorders and preeclampsia (HR = 1.66; 95% CI, 1.14-2.42) or severe preeclampsia (HR = 2.01; 95% CI, 1.08-3.73) was independent of covariates.
This risk also increased in the presence of maternal diabetes, hypertensive disorders and overweight/obesity. The effects of severe preeclampsia on childhood mental disorders were partially mediated with preterm and small for gestational age births and admission to the neonatal ICU.
“Our findings increase our understanding of the etiology of childhood mental disorders, and highlight that maternal hypertensive pregnancy disorders not only have adverse effects on the somatic health of the mother and offspring, but they, especially maternal preeclampsia, are possible risk factors for childhood mental disorders in the offspring,” Lahti-Pulkkinen said in an interview. “Tentatively, our findings suggest that effective interventions for maternal hypertensive disorders may have the potential to have beneficial effects also for the mental health of the offspring, but this will need to be examined in more detail in further randomized-controlled intervention trials.” – by Darlene Dobkowski
For more information:
Marius Lahti-Pulkkinen, PhD, can be reached at marius.lahti-pulkkinen@helsinki.fi.
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
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